The latest smart phones and wireless air cards allow mobile devices to consume large amounts of wireless network bandwidth. With bandwidth demand exploding in mobile networks, service providers must expand their radio networks to keep up with data growth. However, adding radio transmitters to keep up with bandwidth growth is not always possible or economical. Mobile service providers spend billions of dollars to upgrade Radio Access Networks (RAN) to support the demand for data services. Additionally, radio frequency (RF) spectrum limitations and interference caused by expanding the RF channels make RAN engineering an extremely difficult task.
In addition to expanding the RAN, service providers may also use policies to control network traffic. Core network (CN) elements, such as Policy Decision Points (PDP) and Policy Enforcement Points (PEP), are designed to shape traffic based on predetermined policies. These policies are based on the subscriber's class or the bandwidth provisioned to the subscriber.